Vets say late pay from VA cripples their finances

DENVER — Exasperated veterans who work part-time for the Veterans Administration while attending college say their paychecks are sometimes weeks late, leaving them in trouble with bill collectors or having to borrow money to avoid eviction.
The two-week paycheck is typically about $360, and can be vital to veterans raising families and juggling expenses.

Two Colorado veterans who queried VA work-study students in several states say they found that 48 percent said it usually takes two to four weeks to get their checks. Nearly 13 percent said more than a month.

And they make sometimes a little over min wadge. Wow this must be hard. Bad enough the checks come in late.

Granny says, "Obama ain't keepin' his promises to veterans...Sick veterans wait for Obama to fulfill his promiseSunday, November 11, 2012 - Disability claims can take years

It was one of the simplest, most poignant promises Barack Obama made in 2008 in his first campaign for the White House: He would fulfill “a sacred trust with our veterans” by significantly reducing the government’s lengthy backlog of pending claims for disability coverage. The goal: All veterans could get a decision on disability claims within 125 days. But on this Veterans Day, as Mr. Obama prepares for his second term, the president’s pledge not only remains unfulfilled, it has become a rallying cry for sick veterans, their widows and their advocates, who now wait as long as two years for disability decisions from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Records obtained by the Washington Guardian show that as of Nov. 5, the day before Mr. Obama won re-election, 558,230 of the 820,106 veterans seeking disability coverage had their claims pending for more than the 125-day target. That’s 68.1 percent, or nearly double the 36 percent rate in the summer of 2010. And there are tens of thousands more cases pending in various forms of appeal, where decisions can take months or years to resolve. For instance, the average time it takes to resolve a case before the Veterans Appeals Board is 883 days, or almost 2½ years.

The reason things have become worse rather than better under Mr. Obama is that the claims workers his administration hired did not keep pace with the crush of demand from Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans or the new coverage areas authorized in 2010 for Vietnam veterans. “In the last two years, it has gotten far worse than it has ever been,” said Walter J. Tafe, director of the Burlington County Military and Veterans Service in New Jersey, who has helped thousands of veterans or their widows navigate the VA bureaucracy to secure benefits they’re owed.

Mr. Tafe said he sympathizes with the regional VA workers, who work hard but simply don’t have the resources to keep up with increased demand. He added that he seldom, if ever, sees a case, even a simple one, resolved within the 125-day target that the VA set. “I’m happy if we can get it done in a year. And that’s a simple case. Complicated cases, it can be 18 months or 24 months, easily,” Mr. Tafe said in an interview with the Washington Guardian.

Major hurdles remain to end homelessness among veteransNovember 12, 2012 — Arthur Lute's arduous journey from his days as a U.S. Marine to his nights sleeping on the streets illustrates the challenge for the Obama administration to fulfill its promise to end homelessness among veterans by 2015.

Lute has post-traumatic stress disorder from the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. He spent years drifting through jobs, two years in prison for assault, then 15 months sleeping in the bushes outside the police department of this city south of San Diego. Today, he lives in a $1,235 a month, two-bedroom apartment in a working-class neighborhood. The federal government pays nearly 80 percent of the rent and mostly covers the cost of medicines for his depression, high blood pressure, and other health problems. State-funded programs pay for doctor's appointments for his 6-month-old son and therapy for his wife, who he said is bipolar.

Lute receives a Social Security check and food stamps. A Department of Veterans Affairs case manager communicates with him regularly and helps avert crises, like when Lute's electric bill jumped in an August heat wave and he couldn't afford diapers. A county program provided the crib. The American Legion donated cooking utensils, dishes and other basics.

An upcoming report is expected to show the number of homeless veterans has dropped by at least 15,000 since 2009, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki says, and the drop is the result of an aggressive two-pronged strategy to not only take veterans off the street but also prevent new ones from ending up there. But Shinseki made a bold promise in 2009: The administration would end homelessness among veterans by 2015. The former four-star general says now they're "on target" to meet the goal.

DENVER — Exasperated veterans who work part-time for the Veterans Administration while attending college say their paychecks are sometimes weeks late, leaving them in trouble with bill collectors or having to borrow money to avoid eviction.
The two-week paycheck is typically about $360, and can be vital to veterans raising families and juggling expenses.

Two Colorado veterans who queried VA work-study students in several states say they found that 48 percent said it usually takes two to four weeks to get their checks. Nearly 13 percent said more than a month.

And they make sometimes a little over min wadge. Wow this must be hard. Bad enough the checks come in late.

What exacly is a "min wadge" ? Oh well people who live in glass houses need to be very about throwing stones.

edit BTW there is an opening in the English as a Second Language class which I am teaching so you can take that slot.